Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80014 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80014 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
“Okay, great. I still need to help, though.”
He looked skeptical. “What’re you going to do, find the bad guys and bleed on them?”
“I can knock on doors, chase down leads, ask questions. The more people we have out there digging for information, the sooner we’ll find him.”
“You’re not well enough to do any of that. Also, the police are going to want to speak to you.”
“All the more reason to leave. I don’t have time to answer a bunch of questions.”
“If you don’t want to tell them what happened, tell me instead.”
“Four big men in dark clothes showed up at the bar and shot out the window so they could get in. I shoved Adriano to the floor to get him out of the line of fire, and then one of the bullets hit me. I remember falling, and I hit my head and passed out. The floor had just been mopped, so maybe I slipped. Anyway, I think I was out for maybe a minute or two, and when I came to, everyone was gone. I didn’t see what they were driving, or what direction they went.” I glanced at my upper arm, which was all bandaged up, and asked, “How bad is the gunshot wound?”
“Not very. According to the doctor—who thinks I’m your cousin, by the way—it bled a lot, because the bullet nicked a major artery as it passed through the fleshy part of your arm. They did some minor surgery to patch you up, and you got some stitches. It’s going to hurt like hell when your painkillers wear off, but it didn’t do any permanent damage.”
“Spoken like a man who’s been shot before.”
“Yeah, once or twice.” There was a lull in the conversation, and when I frowned at him, he asked, “What?”
“You met him once.”
“Adriano?”
I nodded. “He came to find you right after he graduated from high school. I guess you were about twenty-one at the time. You cussed him out, flashed a gun, and told him to stay the hell away from you. Do you remember that?”
Dante looked surprised. “That actually happened? I was really drunk that night, and the next morning I wondered if I’d dreamt it. I’d forgotten the name he gave me…”
“It happened, and you broke his heart. I guess you didn’t want to hear about your sainted father splitting up with your mom for a while—and they were split up, by the way. Paulie wasn’t cheating on his wife when he and Mandy got together.”
“I listened to the message you left for Nana, and the bar where you got shot was called Mandy’s Place. I assume that’s not a coincidence.”
“Right. Adriano’s mom owns it. She’s a really good person, and if you’re mean to her when you meet her, I swear to god I will kick your ass. Like I said, she wasn’t the other woman.”
He smiled at me and said, “I like you, Jack. You’re like a tiny, overprotective chihuahua.”
“Whatever. Do you know where my pants ended up? I need to get out of this hospital gown. I also need my phone.”
Dante retrieved a plastic bag from the closet and peered inside it. “Your clothes are covered in blood and pretty much ruined. Here’s your phone, though. I’ll text Vincent and ask him and Nana to try to find you something else to wear, not that I think bailing out of the hospital is a great idea.”
He grabbed a paper towel from beside the sink and used it to fish out my phone, which he handed to me before putting the bag on the nightstand. When I peered inside, I saw what he meant about the clothes. There was no way I’d make it very far dressed like an extra in a slasher film.
While I used some tissues to wipe my bloody fingerprints off the screen, he took his phone from his pocket and started composing a text. Then he glanced at me and asked, “What size do you wear, extra small?”
“Medium. Dude, just because you and your brother are built like professional wrestlers doesn’t mean everyone else is miniature-sized.”
He raised a brow and asked, “How did you know Vincent’s the same size as me?”
“Your other brother, Adriano.”
“Oh. Right. It’s going to take me a minute to get my head around that one.”
“He mentioned four brothers. I guess two of you are older than him, and two are younger.”
“How old is he?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“My brother Gianni’s thirty-seven, too,” he said. “This is all pretty wild. My parents died when I was seven, and I never knew they split up for a while. I guess I must have been about three or so when it happened.”
“That sounds about right.”
I fished the journal from the bag and wiped the blood off the cover before offering it to him. “He was curious about you, so he did some research. That’s how I had your grandmother’s phone number. When things with Greco got bad, he went to San Francisco. Even though he denies it, I think he did that because he really wanted to reach out to you. He was just afraid you’d reject him again.”